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Critic Reviews for Fishing With John

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Audience Reviews for Fishing With John

Apr 27, 2016

"Fishing with John" stars John Lurie with guests such as Jim Jarmusch, Willem Dafoe, Dennis Hopper, Matt Dillon and Tom Waits. Originally the show aired on IFC and Bravo in 1991 with a six episode run. I've never watched fishing shows on ESPN or other sports channels and although Lurie and his guests go fishing in beautiful locales that are tropical, arctic, etc., this show through its six episodes seems more about enjoying life then actually fishing. It's sometimes funny, sometimes poignant and sometimes introspective.

For fans of John Lurie, meaningless conversation, absurdist humor, randomness and a lack of narrative coherence, "Fishing With John" is where it's at. The uncomprisingly esoteric nature of each episode makes it an extremely tough sell to modern audiences, and only a select, select few will find it tolerable, but for those who are willing to embrace the strange, "Fishing With John" is quite entertaining.

Fishing with John is a six episode document ray program, of the fishing adventures of John Lurie. He brought his friends along, which included, Jarmusch, Waits, Dillon, Dafoe, and Hopper. My favorite episode was the first, with Jim Jarmusch, as it set a tone, and had hilarious dialogue. In fact I like the conversation in all the episodes, John Lurie is an obvious BS artist, and everyone else has wit in them. The only episode that I found boring is with Matt Dillon, since things just moved a bit slow.
The man who had the most humorous moments in this film is narrator Robb Webb. I like how Lurie put it in an interview with Criterion:
"He says something and it sounds as though it has to be true. And that is what really made it work, with him saying that ludicrous narration that I wrote." In fact a few times when Webb said something ridiculous, I believed him. What I did while watching this was I would view an episode or two a night, and process it the next day. This was a great leisure viewing, and a relaxing experience.